CSB vs VIG

CSBBVictoryShares US Small Cap High Div Volatility Wtd ETF

VIGAVanguard Dividend Appreciation ETF

In short

CSB Most dividend ETFs crowd into mega-cap payers. CSB goes the other way: the 100 highest yielders drawn from profitable US small caps, weighted by volatility instead of size, so the jumpiest names get the smallest slice.

VIG VIG buys dividend growth, not fat yields: about 300 US companies with a record of raising their payouts, tracked for 0.04% a year. Running since 2006 and now north of $100 billion, it is the plain-vanilla anchor of the dividend-screen aisle.

Stated mandate

CSB The Fund seeks to track, before fees and expenses, the performance of the Nasdaq Victory US Small Cap High Dividend 100 Volatility Weighted Index.

VIG The fund seeks to track the S&P U.S. Dividend Growers Index, which represents common stocks of companies with a record of increasing dividends over time.

Why people hold it

• CSB Weights each holding by the inverse of its volatility rather than market cap, and caps any single sector at 25%, which keeps one hot corner from running the portfolio.nasdaqomx.com
• The starting pool has a profitability gate: the 500 largest US companies under $3B in market cap with positive earnings in each of the four most recent quarters.vcm.com
• Live since 2015, holding roughly 100 stocks and paying monthly, with tracking that has stayed close to the index it advertises.
• A small-cap high-dividend sleeve is a rarity in a peer group built mostly on large-cap payers, so it covers ground the household dividend names largely skip.

• VIG At 0.04% a year, the fee is roughly a tenth of the typical dividend-screen fund's 0.39%, and undercuts every other top-graded fund in the group, DGRO and SCHD included.
• The screen rewards a record of increasing dividends rather than the biggest current payout, so the basket leans on payout discipline instead of stretched yields.
• Live since 2006, over $100 billion in assets and actively traded, which shows up as easy fills rather than wide spreads.
• About 300 holdings, cash paid quarterly, and one of the strongest overall implementations in its dividend-screen peer group.

Worth knowing

• CSB The 0.40% fee sits near the middle of its cohort, but the giants of dividend investing (SCHD, VIG, DGRO) charge a fraction of that for large-cap exposure.
• Small caps swing harder than the blue-chip payers most dividend funds hold. Volatility weighting shapes that risk, it does not remove it.
• It trades lightly next to the cohort's household names, and the index reconstitutes only twice a year (March and September), so the yield roster is set in between.nasdaqomx.com

• VIG Growth of payouts, not maximum income, is the mandate. That puts it on a different axis than high-dividend funds such as SPYD.
• US stocks only, no bonds and no overseas payers, and sector weights are whatever the index screen spits out.
• Portfolio risk and concentration measures land mid-pack for the category: it is fully invested in equities and drops when the market drops.

Full CSB profile⁠

Full VIG profile⁠